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Abstract:

The habit of Life Assurance is now almost universal among the
wealthier classes, who every day appreciate its uses more and more;
but unfortunately its benefits rarely reach the poor, who stand
much more in need of them. The small premiums which they can
pay; still more, the small sums in which those premiums must be
collected, and the facilities for fraud and personation given by a
number of small assurances, constitute difficulties impossible to
overcome. A poor man has little or no property; his only capital
is his labour, the profit of which diminishes as his need for it increases.
The capitalist, as he grows old, enjoys the fruits of his
accumulations; but the labourer finds that advancing years deprive
him of the only capital he possessed. If he dies early, he leaves
probably a widow and a helpless family without any means of support.
If he lives long, he finds, as years roll on, that exhausted nature
gives way under burthens which the vigour of youth hardly enabled
it to support. Thus in many cases he is obliged to end his cheerless
existence in the poor-house.